Kalu Rinpoche | Niguma Meditation BCCUK – elements for meditation practice

So now it comes down to the visualisation. When it comes to the visualisation, many people have this idea that “I need to concentrate”, a little bit like when you are playing football or cricket or playing music, I don’t know, with some sort of a physical engagement. They think that “I need to concentrate”. That is a wrong perception of meditation practice.

So therefore when you say “I do meditation, I do visualisation meditation or sound based meditation, visual aspect based, object-based, visual based meditation”, all of that really comes down to 3 elements.

These 3 elements are:

1. སྣང་ལ་རང་བཞིན་མེད་པ “nang la rangshin mepa” ‘Inwardly no intrinsic nature’, like visualising whether it is object, whether you are visualising the deity, syllable, object, whatever it may be, you do not have this idea of fixation or attachment like “Ah I am visualising this”. You do not have a stiff mindset, you rather have a very calm and a clarity mind and then you have an understanding that the very nature that we are visualising it, whether it is an object, whether it is a syllable, whether it is a deity, whether it is a Buddha, the very nature of that you are visualising in itself is emptiness.
   Like an example you are visualizing Buddha and then you have a visualisation of the Buddha but at the same time you have an understanding that the very beautiful aspect, the very nature of the visual aspect, the very nature of that is emptiness, continuous understanding.
2. གསལ་ལ་རྟོག་པ་མེད་པ “sal la tokpa mepa” ‘Non conceptual’, and then the second is that, even though you are visualising it, and then sometimes you may distract it and then if you are distracted come back. Being able to recognise the distraction then come back and maintaining your visualisation is important.
3. དེ་ལ་ཞེན་པ་མེད་པ “de la shenpa mepa” ‘No attachment’ and then the 3rd part is that, as you are experiencing this blissful moment, the sense of joy within that practice, you also don’t have the desire nor expectation of wanting more from it.
4. Then the number 4, I like to add, don’t feel guilty when it comes to your spiritual journey. Many people they say “I have a lot of guilt, guilt, I cannot practice that”. Then you start to have the guilt, ah, you can practice a little bit and then all of a sudden you stop practicing. Guilt is not necessarily helpful in the long run when it comes to the Dharma practice. Awareness of your own action, awareness of your body, speech and mind, maintaining, rejoicing with whatever the practice will do, that is more important.
   Having too much guilt in your mind in order to practice Dharma, that is not really helpful. Because in a spiritual journey, dharmic journey, everybody makes confusion and mistake here and there. So thinking it has to be perfect, absolutely perfect can be discouraging in a long run.

So now it comes down to the visualisation of the “Cleansing with the AH”.